Ray held his hands out to his sides, and asked slowly, “What kind of cancer risk are we talking?”
Oh, boy. I winced. “I think the Red Herring got badly burned, but absorbed most of it. That’s a guess. I don’t know.”
“Why?” Juliet suddenly asked. Then she nodded to an empty wall. “Oh, that makes sense. Harvey can answer that question. He says you can’t yet hear him directly.”
We all looked at her helplessly. Closing her human eyes, she turned her head, looking us over with one shiny red eye on the side of her skull. I felt a weird deja vu. She was doing what I’d just been doing with Archimedes.
Smiling widely, Juliet reported, “Everyone is safe. You both―” and she pointed at Ray and Claire, “―had spots of corruption, but something added to your body taught it to find those cells and eat them. You―” she indicated me, “―are wearing a radiation resistant suit.”
So, my jumpsuit blocked radiation after all. That was nice.
“If anyone ever tells you radiation can cure sickness, don’t listen to them,” Juliet added.
Ray grimaced. “That’s―science has figured that out since the clinic kidnapped you. How long were you there? I am Reviled, by the way. We are supervillains, but we moonlight hero work.”
“E-Claire,” Claire echoed.
I nodded my head. “Bad Penny.”
Juliet let out a sigh, and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I don’t know. Harvey took away my memories to protect me, and I don’t want them back.”
Yup. Woulda said the same thing myself.
Ray took a step forward, peering down at Juliet, and exclaimed, “Watch out. You’re sticking to the floor!”
He started to reach for her, but she shook her head. One hand pulled up with a sound like ripping off duct tape, and she waved him away. “It’s fine. I quite like it.” The ship uncurled and wagged its back end. Juliet giggled. “I feel like I am the ship. It’s alive, and I believe smarter than me, but it can’t think for itself. Does that make sense?”
Ray hooked his thumbs into his belt, and we all stared at her. He answered first with an amicable shrug. “It does, indeed. As long as you are okay.”
“Oh, I am.” Juliet’s smile widened. “I believe I can tell it to heal itself. I shall try. Do let me know if I do anything wrong, please, Harvey?”
She leaned her head against the wall, and sure enough, some of the red chitin latched onto her horns.
I shrugged, too. I guess I had to let her get on with it.
Anyway, I had another responsibility. “Can you send a message to Spider through the Orb of the Heavens, Vera?”
Vera nodded, watching me attentively.
I cleared my throat and tried to organize my thoughts. “Spider, this is the Inscrutable Machine. We are still in the asteroid belt, and the explosion that just happened may be visible from Earth. Be careful out here. We’ve seen signs that someone fought a war in the asteroid belt, and then disappeared. Further, anything unusual found out here is bad news, with high risk of biological contamination. Stick to bare rocks. It is not worth the risk. Finally, I have accidentally tested the Orb of the Heavens’ weapon capability. It does not have a setting below ‘wipe out all life on Earth’, which I know you’re not crazy enough to do. The Inscrutable Machine has had enough of the asteroid belt and is heading to Jupiter. End message.”
Vera dinged, which hopefully meant she’d finished transmitting. I let out a sigh. “Hopefully. If the Red Herring still works. I don’t want to take Juliet back to Spider.”
Claire reached one hand back to toy with her ponytail thoughtfully. “Mourning Dove might help her? I’ll think of someone by the time we head home. You get us moving.”
I prepared to do just that. Turning around, I gave the big eyeball monitor a worried look. With the lid closed, I saw no damage, but something was missing. The penny I’d used to activate the Red Herring had fallen out.
Picking the penny off the floor, I pressed it back into the slot. It didn’t stick. It had run out of juice? Well, maybe I didn’t need it now. I gave the eyelid a tentative push.
“Hmmm? Please, allow me!” Juliet called out behind me.
The eyelid opened, and the domed monitor showed a starscape once more. I laid my hand against its smooth, slightly squishy surface and moved around. The Red Herring turned obediently, until I saw a definitively bigger dot among the stars.
Pressing it hard, I instructed, “Full speed for Jupiter, and give me a distance reading.”
The numbers were already counting down, and spun faster as I watched. The Red Herring still worked. We were on our way!
And missing Geometry class, I noted with considerable satisfaction.
lien numbers ticked down, cutting tiny slices off a gigantic total.
It was going to take us awhile to reach Jupiter.
It didn’t take Ray and Claire long to notice that, either. Claire walked back and opened up the refrigerator hatch. Amid the clatter of bowls, I heard, “I’m so glad I didn’t eat before we went in there. Su. Preme. Ly. Gross. How did you keep yours down, Team Leader?”
My stomach knotted up a bit as she reminded me, but the nausea passed just as quickly. “I tried not to look at the goat cancer zombies.”
“Aaaand that’s my new motto!” Ray sniggered, then yelled back at Claire, “Anything look good? That isn’t obviously meat?”
Claire pulled a big Tupperware tray out of the heated compartment, and chucked it across the space fish corridor. Ray caught it with ease, snapped the top off, and wolfed down lasagna so fast I never saw where the fork came from.
Claire, slightly less desperate, asked, “Would you like anything, Juliet?”
“No, thank you very much, Miss E-Claire.” Juliet bowed her head politely.
Claire didn’t answer, being too busy unwrapping a sub. We had a couple of seconds of silence before Juliet giggled as sweetly as Claire with her power turned up high. “If I lost my girlish figure, you wouldn’t love me anymore.”
“Talking to Harvey?” Ray wandered over to her. He’d already polished off half the tray of lasagna, and waved the rest idly in front of him.
“I am, Mister Reviled,” she answered, with a much quicker nod of her head. A second later, she started giggling again. She looked right across the hall in front of her as she laughed, so it must have been something Harvey said.
Ray bent forward, looked her in the front pair of eyes, followed them across the hall, and reached out and waved his hand in that empty space. “Is he over here?”
“Ray!” I warned him. Not cool, boy!
He straightened up, and spread his hands. He looked maybe just the tiniest bit guilty, but that was it. “We had to know.”
Juliet just giggled until she started snorting, and had to cover her elongated mouth with both hands. It went on and on, and she still sounded fluttery when she wrestled the laughter down enough to tell Ray, “Harvey just predicted that you would try that! It is quite fine, but he would ask you not do that again because it is easier for me to hear him if the illusion that he is physically here is not disturbed. I have not seen him in person in some time, and he must speak to me through an implant between my cerebellum and basal ganglia.” A few more giggles she couldn’t suppress, and she lowered her hands to add, “I believe ganglia is Harvey’s favorite word, he says it so often.”
Ray crouched down to look at Juliet, and raised an eyebrow. She probably couldn’t tell under the mask, but I knew his expressions. “So Harvey’s a doctor?”
“The finest doctor on Earth!” A slight pause and a shift of her eyes must have meant Harvey spoke, but she kept on. “I may remember little, but I know I was dying when my parents brought me to the Clinic, and Harvey cured me with ease. Alas that the other doctors were not so kind. He wanted to quit when he saw what they were doing with his genius, but that would have meant leaving me defenseless for their experiments.”
Another pause, and she lowered her face, smiling like a goat gi
rl in love at the blank spot next to Ray. “You do talk a lot of rubbish sometimes. I believe in you.”
Ray pressed on. “So Harvey is human?”
“As human as you or I.” Juliet answered.
Ray looked up at me and Claire, and I wagged a finger at him. These answers were getting weirder. Let Harvey stay a mystery. We were not going to tell Juliet she wasn’t human anymore.
Claire stepped up, radiating her Little Miss Diplomat ability that had nothing to do with superpowers. “You seem very smart yourself.”
This delighted Juliet, who pried herself off the wall and floor to stand up. Freeing herself of the cord that had attached to her lower neck took a couple of seconds, but she showed no more signs of pain than removing a Band-Aid. Brushing down her hospital gown, she explained, “I was always interested in the sciences. As much as a girl can be educated, I tried to be. My father worried I would become a suffragette!”
Claire leaned closer to her, grinning like she was making a confidential joke. “Believe it or not, the suffragettes won.”
Juliet leaned back, with the exact same expression and tone. The extra eyebrows on the side of her head even went up. “I should think so, if a girl of marriageable age can walk around with bare legs!”
Claire’s confidential smile turned admiring. “You take future shock well.”
“Shouldn’t I?” Juliet whirled around, her puffy shirt and bloomers billowing out with her fluttering gown. Three spinning steps danced her towards the front of the Red Herring, and she bounced lightly from foot to foot the rest of the way. “I’ve been released from perdition, and now I’m in a fantastic boat traveling the interplanetary gulf on a scientific expedition such as I would never dare to dream. I only hope we can find pencils and pens and paper that I can take copious notes. For example, this marvelous feline of yours. May I see it?”
Nope. Wasn’t heel enough to turn down those eager brown eyes. “Sure.” She and I reached up together, prying Archimedes’ claws off my shoulder. It stung a bit when his tail let go of my spine. The tip greedily snaked around, jabbing the base of Juliet’s neck and sinking in. Yikes. Did it look like that when he attached to me?
Juliet had better control of him than I did. While still curled up in her arms he blinked, rolled his eyes, turned his head to look around, and lifted one foot to wash it with his tongue.
She was in heaven. “I shall expire of wonder! I thought animal magnetism discredited, and yet here is both a battery and projector. The bowels have been replaced by a―yes, thank you, Harvey, a neural ganglia of prodigious size.”
Archimedes meowed, and that just excited Juliet more. Closing her human eyes, she watched with one of the red eyes on the side of her head. “I hardly notice the electrical flow through my own spinal cord, but that tiny spark ignites―”
Juliet stopped mid-lecture. Her head snapped up, brown eyes opening again, and she looked back over her shoulder with a petulant pout. “But she is very interested. The device is filled with her magnetism. It is like reading her emotions from a book.” Pause. “Honestly, Harvey, I’m not tired yet!” Pause. “Oh, very well.”
Archimedes detached his tail from Juliet’s spine, curling up into a hibernating ball. Her shoulders slumping, Juliet deposited him in my arms. “Have you a bed, Miss Bad Penny? Harvey insists that I am not used to physical activity, and will need to limit myself.”
“Oh sure, they’re over here.” I led her back down the corridor, past an expressionless Ray and a smirking Claire. Personally, I thought the beds were creepy, attached to the wall bunk bed style but with walls like a coffin.
Juliet climbed into one, folding her hands over her chest and increasing the coffin vibe considerably. Eyes closed, she said softly, “You called yourself villains, but there are no thanks I could give sufficient for this heroic rescue.” Her face tensed, and her voice quavered as she asked, “Harvey, can you stop the nightmares?”
“If he can’t, I can,” I promised―like a chump, since I didn’t actually know if I could deliver. Still, I slipped Archimedes’ tail down the back of my jumpsuit, set him on my shoulder, leaned down and commanded, “Sleep, and do not dream.”
Archimedes meowed loudly. Juliet didn’t respond.
Stroking Archimedes’ head, I walked back up to Ray and Claire. The wall jutted out at hip level next to the eyeball monitor, so I sat on that and let out a sigh.
“Hey, how far are we from Jupiter?” Claire asked.
I shrugged. Ray ventured a guess. “Hours. Perhaps a full day. It takes roughly a minute for the fourth digit to cycle, and whatever that number is, it has seven digits.”
Uh oh. “No internet. This will get boring fast.” I’d taken this job to get away from tedium!
Claire leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. “After the house of horrors, I can handle at least a few hours of boredom.” That lasted for, oh, three seconds before she leaped back upright and held out her hands. “Hey, can I try Archimedes, too?”
“Sure, I guess.” It did hurt a little to peel his tail back off. If I kept attaching and reattaching him, I might start bleeding no matter what super science he used to bypass my skin.
I poured the fluffy black feline into Claire’s arms, and she immediately gave a little start. “Wow, he’s light.”
“You think I could carry him around on my arm if he wasn’t?”
Serenely ignoring my sarcasm, Claire caught Archimedes’ long tail in one finger and raised it to curl around her neck. He loosened up, opened his gleaming red eyes, and mewed.
Claire, on the other hand, slumped back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. “Ugh. I―ugh. You could have warned me about the nausea! Do you get used to this?”
I blinked. “What nausea?”
Ray stepped forward, holding out his own arms. “Let me try. It may only be compatible with Penny’s nervous system. Being goated might render Juliet immune.”
Claire pried Archimedes’ tail loose with gritted teeth, took a deep breath, and passed him over to Ray. Ray sat down on the chitinous red bench opposite me, announced, “Here we go,” and wrapped Archimedes’ tail around the back of his neck.
Archimedes made a noise, wriggled, and pushed himself mostly upright in Ray’s arms. Ray closed his eyes, and shivered. “Okay, yes, this is not fun. At least I can control him.” Archimedes pushed up on his front legs, looking up and down the Red Herring, looked me over, looked Claire over, and finally meowed at her.
She giggled faintly. “That tickles.”
Cradling Archimedes in one arm, Ray peeled off his tail. It looked like that took effort, although the strain couldn’t be physical, not with his strength. As Archimedes curled back into a ball, Ray held him stiffly out to me at arm’s length. “That’s all I’ve got.”
I snorted at them. “Babies. Archimedes is just a big baww of fwuffy wuv, isn’t that wight, widdwe angel?” I scratched the unconscious symbiote under his chin, and tucked his tail back under my jumpsuit―mainly so I could attach him to my shoulder again and get him out of the way.
Claire tilted her head curiously. “Hey, is that something moving on the monitor?”
Subject changed!
“Red Herring, show the closest ten objects,” I ordered. Sure enough, three yellow circles lit up. The other seven must have been asteroids behind us, out of sight. One was so close, it crept slowly along on the screen.
Placing my hand against the eyeball, I swerved us to the side so we would pass it. Claire magnified the view, until we got a look at a jagged hunk of floating space rock.
Ray tried, “Highlight iron in red. What do you know, it worked!” It did, briefly. We zoomed past the suddenly glowing red asteroid. We were really booking. Ahead of us, a new yellow circle appeared.
Claire chuckled. “Well, this will help pass the time.”
It did, barely. It was still a long, long afternoon, even trying out every order we could think of to analyze the asteroids we passed. I gave up when my phone showed 9pm, and we
all turned in.
Ray hadn’t even hinted about who might share whose bed. I had no idea he had so much self-control. All my nerves had been for nothing. Maybe when we got back, I could stop pretending that he was the only one who wanted less ‘boy friend’ and more ‘boyfriend.’
I woke up abruptly, jerking upright and grabbing the back of my neck. Nothing there. No tenderness, no feeling that I’d ripped free any tentacles as I sat up. I let my breathing slow, and the tingle of fear fade. I should have zapped myself with an anti-nightmare signal. After yesterday, bad dreams were inevitable!
Claire yawned above me as I climbed out of my creepy red sleep pod. A quick peek into Juliet’s bed showed that her hands, feet, and the back of her neck actually had attached themselves to the Red Herring again. Yuck. Well, that seemed to be natural for her, poor girl.
Being able to shower, go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, do my laundry, and everything else in a moment of heart-stopping terror left me in a better mood. Yes, setting foot into Red Herring’s freaky bathroom took some nerve, but I felt so good afterwards. Claire and Ray were equally pleased.
The three of us gathered around the refrigerator, debating who ate what. Something was definitely screwy, because the old dishes had been replaced with new food. Spider keeping a close eye on us, no doubt.
“With my Mom’s permission. I’m sure this is our silverware, because it’s actual silver. She stole it from Buckingham Palace. Good morning, Juliet! What would you like to eat?” Claire interrupted herself to flash a sunny smile back towards the bed. Juliet, cords still hooked into the back of her neck, had draped herself over the edge to watch us.
“I believe I would. I haven’t eaten in…” She trailed off, then resumed as if she hadn’t missed a word. “I’d forgotten what hunger felt like.” Another pause, and she folded her arms under her head, giving the empty space next to the bed a faint, skeptical smile. “Yes, doctor. I’ll have a grape, please. I’m under medical orders not to eat any more, because I no longer require human food.” She didn’t sound like she believed that, but then, I could only hear half the conversation.
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